What Hawk Tuah and the tradwife trend tell us about the internet in 2024
Dec 13, 2024
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Samantha Cole, a culture critic and co-founder of 404 Media, and CT Jones, a pop culture writer for Rolling Stone, dive into the quirky world of 2024 internet trends. They discuss the tragicomic rise of a social media personality who expertly turned an interview into fame overnight. They explore the clash of modern celebrity culture with traditional feminine ideals through the 'tradwife' movement. The conversation also highlights concerns over disinformation and declining internet authenticity, pondering how these shifts impact human connections.
Memes significantly influence societal narratives, helping individuals process complex events through humor and shared experiences in 2024.
The rise of the 'trad wife' trend reveals societal tensions regarding gender roles, merging romantic ideals with deeper anxieties about modern femininity.
Deep dives
The Rise of Meme Culture in 2024
The significant role of memes in shaping societal narratives was highlighted in discussions about internet culture in 2024. Memes acted as a lens through which critical events, such as the United Healthcare CEO shooting, were processed and disseminated across various platforms. This phenomenon illustrates how internet users increasingly rely on humor and shared experiences to grapple with complex realities, leading to rapid, often superficial engagement with serious issues. As memes evolve, they reveal both the anxieties and the collective mood of the online community, emphasizing society’s reliance on brief, impactful moments of connection.
The Paradox of Viral Fame
The episode explored the experience of individuals who achieve rapid internet fame, focusing on the character Hawk Tua, who transformed from an overnight sensation into a controversial figure in the cryptocurrency space. This trajectory exposes the dark side of viral fame, where the pursuit of quick success can lead to financial downfall and a turbulent public image. The podcast noted that, while gaining attention can be lucrative, it often comes at the cost of personal integrity and long-term stability. This stark reality reflects a broader trend, suggesting that fleeting notoriety can, paradoxically, lead to both wealth and ruin.
Trends in Online Gender Dynamics
The conversation addressed the rise of trends that reflect shifting gender dynamics online, such as the 'trad wife' phenomenon that romanticizes traditional domestic roles. Interestingly, while there is a growing fascination with such ideals, data from Pornhub indicates corresponding surges in searches for related content, merging themes of modesty and sexuality. This juxtaposition reveals societal tensions around gender that manifest in both aspirational content and fetishized formats, pointing to deeper anxieties about modern femininity. Ultimately, these trends underscore the complexity of contemporary gender roles and the conflicted ways they are expressed and consumed online.
It’s been a year on the internet. A pygmy hippo in Thailand captured our hearts, a model taught us how to make Cocoa Puffs from scratch, a woman turned a word-on-the-street interview into a media empire — and that doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface. Elamin is joined by culture critics Samantha Cole, Jackson Weaver and CT Jones to look back on everything that went down online this year.
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